


Mortality

by certain_as_the_sun



Series: How to Train Your God of Mischief [8]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Loki is Toothless, The Avengers (2012) Never Happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-08-24
Packaged: 2018-07-10 23:09:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7011955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/certain_as_the_sun/pseuds/certain_as_the_sun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Loki realises Hiccup is mortal, and decides to do something about that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Immortality

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place some time after the second part of _How Not to Keep a Secret_. When I was trying to decide what to write next in this AU, I thought "Loki's a god and Hiccup's human; Loki will inevitably outlive Hiccup", and that somehow turned into this silly little story. Shows where thoughts can lead. I couldn't think of how to end the story, so the ending is sort of abrupt.

Hiccup was going to die.

Loki had always known that. The boy was only a mortal, after all. But Stoick's death had made him remember exactly how fragile a human's life was. Now, as he lay in his dragon form on the floor of Hiccup's room, the reality of it sank in. Hiccup was mortal. Hiccup would die. It might happen a week or eighty years from now, but Hiccup would die and Loki would outlive him.

Being Loki, he promptly decided to do something about this. By the time he drifted off to sleep, he had a dozen different plans thought out and ready to put into practice.

His first step was to ascertain whether or not he could still access Yggdrasil. He left the house the next night, when the entire village was asleep, and went to the cove where he'd once been trapped. He closed his eyes and gathered his magic, imagining the branches of Yggdrasil, and stepped forward. He opened his eyes and found himself standing on one of the hidden pathways he'd found, both centuries in the past and decades in the future. He smiled.

Over the next few days he planned for every eventuality. There was no such thing as being too prepared, and that applied more than ever when one planned on robbing the Goddess of Eternal Youth.

At last everything was ready. Loki put his plan into action. He expected to be back before Hiccup noticed he was gone, so it never occurred to him to leave a note.

He ensured he was cloaked from Heimdall's sight before stepping onto one of his hidden pathways.

 

* * *

 

 

Every Asgardian knew where Iðunn's orchard was. It had never occurred to any of them to steal her apples, simply because they had no need to. Because of this, the wards on Iðunn's orchard were designed to keep out inhabitants of other realms, but all of Asgard could have decided to have a picnic in the middle of the orchard and the wards wouldn't do a thing to stop them entering.

Loki knew this, and he knew his magic would confuse the wards into thinking he was Asgardian. And so, it was oddly anticlimactic when all he had to do to steal Iðunn's apples was walk through the gates and pick them from the nearest tree.

It was night, and all of Asgard was either asleep or in a tavern. No one was around to see Loki conjure a basket and put as many apples as he could reach (in other words, every apple on the tree) into it, then banish it to a "storage space", of sorts, where he could access it later. This done, he stood in the orchard for a moment, wondering what to do next. It seemed a waste to have come all this way and then leave so quickly.

Hmm. He rather missed his spell books. He gathered his magic and teleported to the palace library.

 

* * *

  

The next morning was ushered in by a piercing shriek, followed by very loud, very angry, very _creative_ swearing. An assortment of curious Asgardians gathered outside Iðunn's orchard to find out what all the commotion was about. The crowd grew and grew, until finally half of Asgard was hovering outside the gates and waiting for an explanation. They didn't have to wait long. The gates flew open and Iðunn stormed out, with a look on her face that would make an army of Jötnar run for their lives.

"Who was it?" she screamed at the gathered crowd. "Who stole my apples?!"

No one ever did find the missing apples. Odin himself investigated the matter, but he could learn nothing beyond "an entire tree's worth of apples have mysteriously disappeared and no one saw or heard anything". Heimdall, when questioned, swore he had seen no one go near Iðunn's orchard. And if his thoughts moved to a certain God of Mischief who had taken to vanishing from his sight lately, he said nothing about it.

 

* * *

 

It was early morning in Berk, and Astrid had hoped to go on a before-breakfast flight with Stormfly. Those plans were abruptly cancelled when she found Hiccup wandering around the fields outside the village with a worried expression.

"I can't find Toothless anywhere," he explained.

Astrid snorted. "Why are you worried about _him_? Worry about the people who are wherever he is!"

"I'm not worried, I just don't know where he is or what he's doing."

"'He' is right here," a decidedly miffed voice interrupted.

Apparently Toothless/Loki/whatever-name-he-used-at-the-moment felt no need to stay in his dragon form when not in the village. Astrid couldn't for the life of her figure out where he'd come from; he certainly hadn't been behind Hiccup a moment ago, but now there he was, with... Wait a minute. What in Odin's name was the God of Lies doing with a basket of apples? And why was a large pile of books floating in mid-air behind him?

Hiccup had the same thought. He eyed the apples and the books with mingled interest and alarm. "What are those and where did you get them?"

"The books are mine. The apples are from a neighbouring village," said Loki. Astrid didn't believe a word of it. "I thought you might like them, since we so rarely have any fruit here." And _that_ was the most pitiful excuse Astrid had heard in a long time - and considering how much time she spent trying to get Snotlout, Ruffnut and Tuffnut to do something to help around the village, that was saying something.

Hiccup didn't enquire any further into the situation. Astrid wondered about it, but couldn't think of any explanation. Then one came to her that evening. _Apples_. Of course! It was such a ridiculously _obvious_ explanation that she should have realised it at once. She stormed off in search of Hiccup.

"Have you eaten any of those apples?" she demanded when she found him in the forge.

He looked surprised. "Yes, I'd one earlier. Why?"

Astrid didn't wait to explain. She scarcely waited until the words were out of his mouth before running off to find a certain god.

She found him in Hiccup's house, reading a book and eating one of those damned apples. He set the book down when she barged into the room. He took in her incensed expression and grinned.

"I take it you've put two and two together," he said calmly, taking another bite of the apple.

Astrid hoped he choked on it.

Now she was facing him, she was suddenly at a loss for what to say. She opened her mouth. What came out was, " _Why_? Why steal Iðunn's apples?"

"What makes you think I stole them?" She glared at him. He sighed. "Very well, I admit I stole them. As for why, surely you would not begrudge your beloved a chance for eternal life?"

"But the apples aren't for humans!"

"I see no reason why they should not be."

"What will the other gods say when they find out?"

"They will have no way of tracing the theft to me."

Once more Astrid found herself at a loss for words. Loki finished the apple and waited for a minute, as if he expected her to speak.

At last, he said, "My reasons for this were selfish. I see no point in denying it. Hiccup is my friend, but he is only human. By stealing these apples, I have postponed the pain his death would bring me by centuries, possibly millennia."

"Did you ask him first? Did you even tell him what you were doing?"

"Of course not." Loki seemed surprised at the very idea. "He would have objected. Now, he will still object but there is nothing he can do about it."

"That's what's wrong with you."

"...I beg your pardon?"

"You do what _you_ want, not what other people want, and they have to suffer for it."

He looked confused. "I do not consider immortality 'suffering'."

"But what if Hiccup does? Maybe immortality wouldn't be that bad, but if someone forced _me_ into it without giving me a choice, I'd-" A strange look flitted across Loki's face. It was gone in an instant, but it made a sudden sense of foreboding take hold of her. "Have you given me any of those apples?"

"That depends." Oh no. "Did you eat the dinner your parents had prepared for you?"

Yes. Yes, she had. Her parents often left food for her when they were off somewhere or other, and since it saved her the trouble of cooking for herself she didn't mind. The only time she didn't eat the food her parents left was if it was on the verge of turning into compost. There had been nothing wrong with today's meal - or so she thought - so she'd eaten it.

" _What did you put in that food_?" she yelled at him.

For the first time in their acquaintance, Loki looked discomfited. "Only a few slices of an apple, and a spell to disguise the taste. Hiccup would have been upset if he had to face immortality without you, so despite my personal dislike of you I-"

Whatever else he might have said will never be known, for Astrid punched him. _Hard_.

And that was why Hiccup came home to find his girlfriend screaming obscenities at his best friend.


	2. Immorality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which no one is happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be a separate story, but I decided it worked better as a second chapter of _Mortality_. Writing it was an uphill battle; it was one of those things that didn't want to be written and, like the first chapter, I simply couldn't think of how to end it.

Berk noticed quickly that something seemed to have gone wrong between Hiccup and Astrid. Hiccup looked perpetually gloomy, while Astrid went around looking like a thunderstorm, snapping at everyone who annoyed her. Common consensus was that they'd had a fight, and various well-meaning Berkians tried to convince them to make amends.

The truth was much more complicated, and only three people knew it.

 

* * *

 

 

It had been a month since Loki had stolen Iðunn's apples. It had been a month since circumstances (and Astrid) forced him to explain his actions to Hiccup long before he had planned to. It had been a month since Hiccup had spoken to Loki.

Frankly, the god couldn't see what all the fuss was about. Most humans wanted immortality, so why were these two so upset that he'd given it to them? He decided to confront Hiccup about it.

This was easier said than done. The boy was remarkably good at ignoring him, avoiding him, or finding some excuse not to talk to him. Spending time around other Berkians was an easy way to do this. Loki could hardly take his Æsir form in front of the whole village, after all. So he did the only thing he could do and kidnapped Hiccup. To be more precise, one night he dragged the human out of the house and into the forest where they couldn't be disturbed.

"I've had enough of this... childishness!" he snapped, pacing back and forth. "Why do you resent my gift so much?"

Hiccup glared at him. "Oh, I don't know, maybe because you made me immortal without asking if I _wanted_ to be immortal? And you dragged Astrid into it, too!"

"Would you have wanted to see her age and die while you remained young?" Loki asked. It was mostly a rhetorical question, but if there was one thing his time on Midgard had taught him, it was that the idiocy of humans knew no bounds.

"I didn't want -" Hiccup broke off and took a deep breath. "Humans aren't immortal. We shouldn't be immortal."

"I see no reason why you shouldn't."

Hiccup shut his eyes and counted to ten. It didn't help, so he counted to twenty. "You should have asked."

"You would have objected."

"Yes, but still -" Hiccup looked like he wanted to scream. "I'm immortal now. My friends aren't. Astrid and I will have to see them die, and see everyone we know die, and people will start asking why we haven't aged and _what will we tell them_? Everything's perfect for you, but what about _us_?"

"I would hardly call an eternity of Astrid "perfect"," Loki said, with what he thought was admirable patience.

Hiccup opened his mouth. Then he shut it again. Dead silence reigned for several minutes. Then, so quietly a human would have been unable to hear, he whispered, "How can I ever trust you again?"

This was, in Loki's opinion, a very strange thing to say. "I fail to see what trust has to do with this."

"You just tricked us into immortality because of what you wanted! How can I trust you not to do the same thing again?"

"...I am the God of Mischief," Loki pointed out after an uncomfortable pause. "It is in my nature to trick people."

Hiccup opened his mouth. Then he closed it again. He turned to leave. "Don't follow me."

Loki was not noted for respecting other people's wishes - the fact they were in this situation at all demonstrated this - but he didn't want to alienate Hiccup more than he already had. And so he stayed where he was, with the sense of having irreparably broken something priceless.

 

* * *

 

 

After the fiasco that was Loki's first attempt to talk to Hiccup, the god took to staying away from the village as much as possible. He considered visiting his old accomplices the twins, but decided against it. Ruffnut was still entirely too infatuated with Eret. The last thing he needed right now was to trade the moping of immortal humans for the moping of lovesick humans.

He decided to simply wait for Hiccup to adjust to immortality. Humans calmed down quickly; in another week or so this would all have blown over and everything would be back to normal.

Then Astrid came in search of him. She found him in the cove where he had stayed prior to the fight with the Red Death. Human and god regarded each other warily for a minute.

"So," Astrid said at last. "We're immortal."

Loki nodded, unsure of where this was going.

"And there's no way we can be made unimmortal."

Loki opened his mouth to correct her - "unimmortal", indeed! Was there something wrong with her vocabulary? The opposite of "immortal" was "mortal", as even a human should know - but stopped when he saw the look on her face. He settled for shaking his head.

Astrid sat down on a rock. "He'll probably never trust you again."

"He said as much," Loki said, resolutely ignoring the crushing sense of having lost something vital.

"So what are you going to do about it?"

He blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

She glared at him. "When are you going to apologise?"

Loki had a sneaking suspicion that reiterating his belief there was nothing to apologise for would be the worst thing he could possibly do in this situation. So he raised an eyebrow and said nothing.

Astrid continued, "I know, you think everything's just fine and we're overreacting. But you still owe him an apology. You let him think you were his friend. If you were, why haven't you apologised for making him miserable?"

...Maybe the human had a point (and oh, how it _galled_ to admit that, even to himself).

 

* * *

 

It took Loki two days and a lot of hard thinking before he could overcome his pride enough to go in search of Hiccup. He found him in the forge, listlessly shuffling through plans for various machines. Hiccup looked up briefly when the god removed the glamour concealing himself from human eyes, then turned his attention back to the papers.

Loki had gone to the trouble of thinking up exactly what he would say. It was quite a good speech, if the Liesmith did say so himself, and - remarkably for him - about fifty percent of it was true. The only trouble was, he couldn't remember a word of it.

"I'm sorry," was all he could find to say.

Hiccup looked up again. "Will you do it again?"

"No," said Loki, and meant it - at the time.

 

* * *

 

The villagers were greatly relieved to discover that Hiccup and Astrid had apparently made up their quarrel and were back to their normal selves. And if Hiccup occasionally fell into a sort of depression, and if Astrid occasionally gave Toothless death glares, and if Toothless looked as guilty as a dragon could look on these occasions, no one thought anything of it. No one, that is, but the three people who knew what was really going on.

And if Loki sometimes felt a twinge of something that might be shame over his behaviour, he was the only one who knew.


End file.
